ALL ABOUT CORA: 1-MONTH-OLD

Wow, that has to have been the absolute fastest month of my life!

My baby doll is now 1-month-old, and not so little anymore. We estimated her at 9 pounds on our home scale today. We'll see what her official stats are at her well baby exam next week, but that gives us a good guess on her progress, anyway. And if we're correct, then she's gained a whopping 3 lbs since she was born!

Here are some comparisons of Cora at 1-day-old vs. 4-weeks-old:

As you can guess by the weight gain, Cora is still an excellent eater. She really is "chunking up". In fact, my brother teased that she's going to be a sumo wrestler after I sent him this photo (beefcake arms, squishy cheeks, double chin, and a muffin-top belly... you gotta love growing babies!):

While Cora is still eating well, her nursing habits have changed. She doesn't cluster feed as much in the evenings (generally just 2-3 feedings between 5-9pm now), but she now "snacks" in the morning (nursing a little here and there from 8-10am). I've decided to start trying this week to get her into a bit more of a routine (since she'll need to be on a more defined schedule by the time I go back to work), but it isn't going very well so far... When she wants to eat, she wants to EAT, and there is no delaying her. To assist with this effort, Jay has started getting up with her at night whenever she wakes earlier than the 3-hour mark (that's 3 hours from the start of one feeding to the start of the next, not between feedings). He has only had to do this twice so far, but he has been quite successful at calming her during these wakings, so we don't think she's waking up hungry. It's just gas. She'll still take the paci now and then, from Jay (though he has to be very persuasive about it), but never from me (she honestly acts like I'm gagging her and breaking her heart - it's pitiful).

In general, Cora is still sleeping really well at night, just not in the stretches I was used to during her first 2 weeks. She generally "goes down for the night" between 11pm and midnight (or, if we're lucky, she goes to sleep when James does, at 8pm, then wakes at 11pm to nurse), nurses for an hour sometime between 2-4am, then wakes anywhere from 6-8am to nurse again and start her day. If bring her to bed with me for the morning nursing session, she'll go back to sleep for an hour or so (she already shows an affinity for sleeping in with her Mama), but I only do that on the weekends (when Jay is there to blockade the other side of the bed). Also, I'm finally convincing her that rocking her to sleep in the glider is an acceptable alternative to walking and swaying, which is awesome because 1) it was wreaking havoc on my back in the evenings and 2) our floors are creaky and I've been worried about waking James with my middle-of-the-night pacings.

We're still getting about the same amount of awake time with her every day, but the hours have shifted. She now stays awake longer in the morning and less in the afternoon. This has been quite convenient though, since she now usually sleeps through our dinner (which makes cooking dinner and feeding James much easier). She is spending more and more time playing on the floor, checking out her play mat toys (and even unintentionally grabbing them already) and working her muscles during tummy time (we think she's getting awfully strong, awfully fast):

Really, as long as you give Cora what she wants, she is a very calm and happy baby. If not, then watch out - our girl is not afraid to tell you when she is displeased! In fact, she sometimes gets so angry that she gets "spittin' mad" (I have had milk bubbles and baby slobber sprayed in my face on many occassions)... She sometimes sounds like a hissing cat. Other times like a gremlin. Luckily, Jay and I are learning our own individual tricks to quickly remedy her displeasure. She dislikes being swaddled (and we even went 3 nights in a row without swaddling, just to test it out), but we're still doing it. She fights it for a few minutes, kicking and stretching and grunting and spitting, but once she settles in, we're good for a few hours of sleep.

We're just very much in love with our little girl, and looking forward to her continued growth and development (because now we know that babies just get more and more fun with each passing month). And as the months pass, Jay will be taking portraits of Cora, just as he did for James. And I will be taking comparison photos of her every month on her birthday, wearing the same bloomers (I have them in 2 sizes), laying on her changing pad. Here she is at 1-month-old: